5 ms·

Meth and heroin are what the average person considers 'drugs' when speaking about addiction, but alcohol, which is romanticized, and at times suggested as part

by eggy 10y ago

Meth and heroin are what the average person considers 'drugs' when speaking about addiction, but alcohol, which is romanticized, and at times suggested as part of a healthy diet, is probably the most subtly destructive of all given how pervasive it is in our modern society. Imagine if meth and heroin, instead of being portrayed as taboo, and dark, were portrayed the same way drinking is in sophomoric college comedies as a cool, silly thing to do, and 'everybody does it'. You don't necessarily see these contrasts until you have been sober many years, and open your eyes and look around you.

jfoutz 10y ago
Alcohol is devastating to the body, over many years. A year of meth, oh my. Drugs do damage. Sugar has consequences, but the consequences of sugar aren't the same as cigarettes, and cigarettes aren't the same as heroin. You're not wrong. just about everything will kill you in excess. Alcohol will kill you faster than steak. Some things are much much easier to consume to excess. And that difficulty varies by person.
- DugFin 10y ago
  I've seen people drink themselves over the course of a year into a state of health similar to what you allude to with "a year of meth, oh my". I've also known meth users who were highly functional and used it for years with no significant health issues. All in all, I'd say they're about equal.
  - jfoutz 10y ago
    I don't doubt your personal experience. Statistically, your friends are outliers.
    - thr303808 10y ago
      Do you have a source for these statistics? I know hundreds of people who have taken meth/speed during the weekend for years and are working, functioning people.
      - defen 10y ago
        Street meth or pharmaceutical meth?
    - mcbits 10y ago
      Where do you get statistics on occasional/light illegal drug users who have no contact with law enforcement or mental health researchers? People with jobs and families have a lot more to lose by admitting to the wrong person that they sniffed $50 of coke at a party last weekend than by admitting they chugged $50 of booze and almost choked on their own vomit (for example).
      - eggy 10y ago
        Great points, and much more succinct than mine below. I think your point is exactly what I mean about romanticizing alcohol. People practically brag about how hungover they are, or how much they drank. Shared misery.
    - eggy 10y ago
      Yes, maybe in one focus they are outliers, but the assumptions and parameters of the statistic should be qualified before dismissing the true harm alcohol causes. It's like the 'how would you like to die' game, slow or fast. A DUI can be fatal on your first drunk at any age. I know personally of a college roommates brother, who was a straight A student, and got drunk for the third time in his life, and wound up killing somebody with his car. He went away for manslaughter. I'd say the side-effect there was pretty 'oh boy' for him and the victim. Think of how many people you may have seen go into a car after a few drinks, and how many of them actually got pulled over or fined for DUI. A lot of people drive under the influence and fly below the radar of the statistics. I have acquaintances and business associates who have been doing it for years. Heroin and meth are stigmatized, and not a industrially-produced, government-controlled product like alcohol. They are almost always impure with other deleterious ingredients. Pure heroin used to be released on purpose in my old neighborhood in the 70s and 80s under somebody's 'brand' to hype sales of their 'product' for a few weeks even at the expense of a few overdoses. Alcohol is under government regulation per % of alcohol per type of beverage, health inspections, and additives. People have a casual drink at lunch, but you don't see somebody whip out a needle at a casual business lunch, so meth and heroin tend to be relegated to dark alleys, loners at home, parties, etc... The typical photo of a toothless, emaciated person comes from the side-effects of societal stigmatization, remaining in the shadow of crime, and less acceptance for that type of substance. There are plenty accounts of functional heroin addicts, and I knew/know a few personally. Their colleagues would never know. They eat right, go to work, and just use weekly and sometimes daily. There are 17 times as many alcoholics as meth addicts per a 2012 study [1]. And alcohol kills slowly. Even the healthiest person who has 3 or more drinks a day is putting mileage on their body, the liver in particular, not to mention the mental effects. Choose your poison - one's government and socially embraced, the other(s) are associated with criminals and 'addicts'. For a quick, non-academic feel of what I am trying to convey, watch and compare 'Requiem for A Dream' with any of the 'Hangover' movies. Can you find a meth/heroin movie like the 'Hangover' movies? A comedy that a broad range of people view and laugh at. Why not? The movie has what, 2 sequels already? [1] https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/methamphetamine/what-scope-methamphetamine-abuse-in-united-states https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/meth...
      - 10y ago
    - collyw 10y ago
      My city has a reputation as having a heroin problem. I see a lot more alcoholics out on the street than heroin addicts.
    - OvidNaso 10y ago
      Heroin is an opiate, and opiates do almost zero damage to the body. I know meth and heroin have culturally maintained their status as horrific amoungst young people despite the drug war's campaign of misinformation, and opiate addiction is a horrific thing, but clearly these drugs are not what you think they are.
      - shabble 10y ago
        Whilst this is largely true, there are plenty of opportunities for harm from contaminated or adulterated drugs, blood-bourne disease from needle sharing, and all manner of peripheral damage from poor injection technique or inappropriate routes of administration. And, of course, the ever-present risk of overdose due to wildly varying purity. Of course, almost all of those things apply to other drugs when injected as well, but there is some evidence to suggest long-term use, even medically, can lead to Opioid Induced Hyperalgesia[1], which is definitely not harmless. I'm not disagreeing with you entirely, but I wouldn't paint quite such a rosy picture. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opioid-induced_hyperalgesia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opioid-induced_hyperalgesia
        function_seven 10y ago
        Regarding your first paragraph, almost every hazard you mention is a consequence of prohibition, not an innate hazard of opiates themselves. Illegal drugs get adulterated due to black market actors looking to pad their margins. Needles get shared because they're not legal to buy OTC. Poor injection technique and inappropriate routes of administration occur (in part) due to the desire to hide drug use. Those two items would probably be lessened if addicts had the same access to education that diabetics do. And wildly varying purity is not something you find in drugs bought from a pharmacy, but is found from sellers operating in the shadows. Cigarettes and alcohol do not suffer from these things, because they're legal and regulated.
        alsetmusic 10y ago
        > Regarding your first paragraph, almost every hazard you mention is a consequence of prohibition, not an innate hazard of opiates themselves. > Illegal drugs get adulterated due to black market actors looking to pad their margins. There was a group that offered free purity checks for MDMA (ecstasy) around 1999-2000 and they performed the service at raves. They announced that they would appear at a party I went to in the Midwest, but didn't operate because the police announced that the group would be arrested on site if they ran any tests. A warehouse of people took unknown substances without a basic safety net because the cops weren't willing to concede that this would have been a public service that might actually do some good. I stopped taking ecstasy about a year later because the increasing impurities made us feel awful the following day, but not before taking many doses that had who knows what in them. As such, while I am somewhat moderate in my stance on decrimianization, I also believe that the authorities are largely responsible for the mess that drug use can create.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
hugh4 10y ago
It's not about portrayal, it's about actual physiology. The percentage of alcohol users (ie almost everybody) who become alcoholic is quite low. The percentage of heroin or meth users who become heroin or meth addicts is very high indeed. Alcohol still of course does plenty of damage, unsurprisingly since it's the only such substance which the majority of the population consumes. Maybe the world would be a slightly better place if we hadn't started drinking booze all those thousands of years ago. But I don't buy the idea that because we accept one particular form of stupid behaviour that we should tolerate all the others... any more than I buy the idea that just because I tolerate my unemployed brother living in my apartment that I should open the doors to let everyone else live there too.
- DugFin 10y ago
  >The percentage of alcohol users (ie almost everybody) who become alcoholic is quite low. The percentage of heroin or meth users who become heroin or meth addicts is very high indeed. Do you have a source for this? Every study I've seen shows addiction rates among users in the 10-15% range for all three.
- fiatmoney 10y ago
  It is difficult to look at "% of users who become addicts" in a vacuum, since it's a population selected for willingness to take illegal drugs and hang out with the sorts of people with access to them.
- eggy 10y ago
  I think it is because society tolerates alcohol abuse more, and the delineator between alcoholic and non-alcoholic is biased. See my other comments in this thread. People openly admit to their peers being hungover when showing up to work, or bragging about their crazy, drunk weekend. There's a lot of denial about alcohol's impact on society, and what constitutes an alcoholic when it is legal, and widely accepted. Just substitute heroin or meth for some of the things people say about their alcoholic adventures, and you will see this very clearly.
- collyw 10y ago
  I heard it was around 10% for heroin users. No idea what the numbers for alcohol are. I imagine social circumstances play at least as large a role as the actual drugs.
prawn 10y ago
There are routinely articles in the Australian media about a glass of red wine a day being good for your health, likewise with chocolate, etc.
- lomnakkus 10y ago
  Often, if you dig into the sources these types of articles you find incredibly specific research which has very little to with what the fluff piece is gushing positively about... and which is paid for by the industry it's not-so-subtly promoting. Often the industry backers have even done the study themselves, had their researchers write it up, and paid(!) some researcher at a publicly funded institution to add their (the researcher's) name to it and submit it to a journal. Rarely is it in any way clear that the study has actually been performed by industry groups/researchers with vested interests. This is one of the (many) reasons you should be very skeptical of any of the "X is good for you!" type articles.

by eggy 10y ago

jfoutz 10y ago

Alcohol is devastating to the body, over many years. A year of meth, oh my. Drugs do damage. Sugar has consequences, but the consequences of sugar aren't the same as cigarettes, and cigarettes aren't the same as heroin. You're not wrong. just about everything will kill you in excess. Alcohol will kill you faster than steak. Some things are much much easier to consume to excess. And that difficulty varies by person.

DugFin 10y ago
I've seen people drink themselves over the course of a year into a state of health similar to what you allude to with "a year of meth, oh my". I've also known meth users who were highly functional and used it for years with no significant health issues. All in all, I'd say they're about equal.
- jfoutz 10y ago
  I don't doubt your personal experience. Statistically, your friends are outliers.
  - thr303808 10y ago
    Do you have a source for these statistics? I know hundreds of people who have taken meth/speed during the weekend for years and are working, functioning people.
    - defen 10y ago
      Street meth or pharmaceutical meth?
  - mcbits 10y ago
    Where do you get statistics on occasional/light illegal drug users who have no contact with law enforcement or mental health researchers? People with jobs and families have a lot more to lose by admitting to the wrong person that they sniffed $50 of coke at a party last weekend than by admitting they chugged $50 of booze and almost choked on their own vomit (for example).
    - eggy 10y ago
      Great points, and much more succinct than mine below. I think your point is exactly what I mean about romanticizing alcohol. People practically brag about how hungover they are, or how much they drank. Shared misery.
  - eggy 10y ago
    Yes, maybe in one focus they are outliers, but the assumptions and parameters of the statistic should be qualified before dismissing the true harm alcohol causes. It's like the 'how would you like to die' game, slow or fast. A DUI can be fatal on your first drunk at any age. I know personally of a college roommates brother, who was a straight A student, and got drunk for the third time in his life, and wound up killing somebody with his car. He went away for manslaughter. I'd say the side-effect there was pretty 'oh boy' for him and the victim. Think of how many people you may have seen go into a car after a few drinks, and how many of them actually got pulled over or fined for DUI. A lot of people drive under the influence and fly below the radar of the statistics. I have acquaintances and business associates who have been doing it for years. Heroin and meth are stigmatized, and not a industrially-produced, government-controlled product like alcohol. They are almost always impure with other deleterious ingredients. Pure heroin used to be released on purpose in my old neighborhood in the 70s and 80s under somebody's 'brand' to hype sales of their 'product' for a few weeks even at the expense of a few overdoses. Alcohol is under government regulation per % of alcohol per type of beverage, health inspections, and additives. People have a casual drink at lunch, but you don't see somebody whip out a needle at a casual business lunch, so meth and heroin tend to be relegated to dark alleys, loners at home, parties, etc... The typical photo of a toothless, emaciated person comes from the side-effects of societal stigmatization, remaining in the shadow of crime, and less acceptance for that type of substance. There are plenty accounts of functional heroin addicts, and I knew/know a few personally. Their colleagues would never know. They eat right, go to work, and just use weekly and sometimes daily. There are 17 times as many alcoholics as meth addicts per a 2012 study [1]. And alcohol kills slowly. Even the healthiest person who has 3 or more drinks a day is putting mileage on their body, the liver in particular, not to mention the mental effects. Choose your poison - one's government and socially embraced, the other(s) are associated with criminals and 'addicts'. For a quick, non-academic feel of what I am trying to convey, watch and compare 'Requiem for A Dream' with any of the 'Hangover' movies. Can you find a meth/heroin movie like the 'Hangover' movies? A comedy that a broad range of people view and laugh at. Why not? The movie has what, 2 sequels already? [1] https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/methamphetamine/what-scope-methamphetamine-abuse-in-united-states https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/meth...
    - 10y ago
  - collyw 10y ago
    My city has a reputation as having a heroin problem. I see a lot more alcoholics out on the street than heroin addicts.
  - OvidNaso 10y ago
    Heroin is an opiate, and opiates do almost zero damage to the body. I know meth and heroin have culturally maintained their status as horrific amoungst young people despite the drug war's campaign of misinformation, and opiate addiction is a horrific thing, but clearly these drugs are not what you think they are.
    - shabble 10y ago
      Whilst this is largely true, there are plenty of opportunities for harm from contaminated or adulterated drugs, blood-bourne disease from needle sharing, and all manner of peripheral damage from poor injection technique or inappropriate routes of administration. And, of course, the ever-present risk of overdose due to wildly varying purity. Of course, almost all of those things apply to other drugs when injected as well, but there is some evidence to suggest long-term use, even medically, can lead to Opioid Induced Hyperalgesia[1], which is definitely not harmless. I'm not disagreeing with you entirely, but I wouldn't paint quite such a rosy picture. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opioid-induced_hyperalgesia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opioid-induced_hyperalgesia
      - function_seven 10y ago
        Regarding your first paragraph, almost every hazard you mention is a consequence of prohibition, not an innate hazard of opiates themselves. Illegal drugs get adulterated due to black market actors looking to pad their margins. Needles get shared because they're not legal to buy OTC. Poor injection technique and inappropriate routes of administration occur (in part) due to the desire to hide drug use. Those two items would probably be lessened if addicts had the same access to education that diabetics do. And wildly varying purity is not something you find in drugs bought from a pharmacy, but is found from sellers operating in the shadows. Cigarettes and alcohol do not suffer from these things, because they're legal and regulated.
        alsetmusic 10y ago
        > Regarding your first paragraph, almost every hazard you mention is a consequence of prohibition, not an innate hazard of opiates themselves. > Illegal drugs get adulterated due to black market actors looking to pad their margins. There was a group that offered free purity checks for MDMA (ecstasy) around 1999-2000 and they performed the service at raves. They announced that they would appear at a party I went to in the Midwest, but didn't operate because the police announced that the group would be arrested on site if they ran any tests. A warehouse of people took unknown substances without a basic safety net because the cops weren't willing to concede that this would have been a public service that might actually do some good. I stopped taking ecstasy about a year later because the increasing impurities made us feel awful the following day, but not before taking many doses that had who knows what in them. As such, while I am somewhat moderate in my stance on decrimianization, I also believe that the authorities are largely responsible for the mess that drug use can create.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

hugh4 10y ago

It's not about portrayal, it's about actual physiology. The percentage of alcohol users (ie almost everybody) who become alcoholic is quite low. The percentage of heroin or meth users who become heroin or meth addicts is very high indeed. Alcohol still of course does plenty of damage, unsurprisingly since it's the only such substance which the majority of the population consumes. Maybe the world would be a slightly better place if we hadn't started drinking booze all those thousands of years ago. But I don't buy the idea that because we accept one particular form of stupid behaviour that we should tolerate all the others... any more than I buy the idea that just because I tolerate my unemployed brother living in my apartment that I should open the doors to let everyone else live there too.

DugFin 10y ago
>The percentage of alcohol users (ie almost everybody) who become alcoholic is quite low. The percentage of heroin or meth users who become heroin or meth addicts is very high indeed. Do you have a source for this? Every study I've seen shows addiction rates among users in the 10-15% range for all three.
fiatmoney 10y ago
It is difficult to look at "% of users who become addicts" in a vacuum, since it's a population selected for willingness to take illegal drugs and hang out with the sorts of people with access to them.
eggy 10y ago
I think it is because society tolerates alcohol abuse more, and the delineator between alcoholic and non-alcoholic is biased. See my other comments in this thread. People openly admit to their peers being hungover when showing up to work, or bragging about their crazy, drunk weekend. There's a lot of denial about alcohol's impact on society, and what constitutes an alcoholic when it is legal, and widely accepted. Just substitute heroin or meth for some of the things people say about their alcoholic adventures, and you will see this very clearly.
collyw 10y ago
I heard it was around 10% for heroin users. No idea what the numbers for alcohol are. I imagine social circumstances play at least as large a role as the actual drugs.

prawn 10y ago

There are routinely articles in the Australian media about a glass of red wine a day being good for your health, likewise with chocolate, etc.

lomnakkus 10y ago
Often, if you dig into the sources these types of articles you find incredibly specific research which has very little to with what the fluff piece is gushing positively about... and which is paid for by the industry it's not-so-subtly promoting. Often the industry backers have even done the study themselves, had their researchers write it up, and paid(!) some researcher at a publicly funded institution to add their (the researcher's) name to it and submit it to a journal. Rarely is it in any way clear that the study has actually been performed by industry groups/researchers with vested interests. This is one of the (many) reasons you should be very skeptical of any of the "X is good for you!" type articles.